Rishita Chaudhary

I have been thinking about growth and decay, the interplay between the two, the way all growth requires regeneration, which in turn requires a shedding, a composting, a reconstituting of old material. We don’t always know what needs to be shed, or what the optimal direction of growth is. This is where the “blind optimism” of a tree is helpful — the... See more

I wanted to live at the edge of the imperative, in the tender fury of the reckless moment, for in this brief and pointillist life, bright-dark and electric, I could do nothing else.

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The human spirit has a primal allegiance to wildness, to really live, to snatch the fruit and suck it, to spill the juice. We may think we are domesticated but we are... See more

The distinction between a deeper “emotional” belief and a more surface-level “intellectual” one is important. If you take someone with chronic self-doubt, you could easily get them to rehearse the statement “I am capable,” but the question is whether they actually believe that. When you emotionally believe something, it’s no longer something you’re... See more

“Even if, as I believe, the vitality of matter is real, it will be hard to discern it, and, once discerned, hard to keep focussed on,” Bennett writes. “I have come to see how radical a project it is to think vital materiality.” It’s not just that concentration can be wearisome. Bennett had shown me that picture of the dead rats for a reason: being ... See more

These artworks have the capacity to alter our perceptions: of ourselves, certain concepts, the history or present or future of the world. Many of my favorite visual artworks reorient my perception of beauty (making a beautiful thing boring, making an ugly thing interesting); many of my favorite literary artworks change my perception of morality (by... See more

a meditative yet exuberant journey through the world within and the world without, inspired by the Japanese notion of tsuumogami : the soul, or spirit, that inanimate objects are believed to acquire after being of service in the world for a hundred years.